updated 11:05 am EDT, Thu September 20, 2007

iPhone coming to France

France Telecom today announced that it holds exclusive rights to distribute Apple's iPhone in France. The company's CEO Didier Lombard refused to offer details on pricing, but said that the iPhone will not be subsidized by the operator and that French consumers will see iPhones before Christmas and as early as November, according to Thomson Financial. Apple announced that mobile carrier O2 would begin selling iPhones in the UK starting November 9th, confirming rumors that the Cupertino-based company had already signed a deal to distribute its cellular handset in Europe. Apple also revealed yesterday that the iPhone is coming to Germany via T-Mobile, making good on its promise to offer the iPhone in select European countries as a first step in distributing the device overseas.

separating markets

The iTunes system prevents a person in the UK from purchasing a music track on the French site. The EU is concerned that this is contrary to the laws that underpin the common market. That is, that any person in the EU should be able to purchase a product that is for sale in any EU Member State.

It is possible that the EU may also raise concerns if a UK citizen is unable to purchase a 'French' iPhone for use in the UK.

the same for US

here in the U.S. i've found music on other itunes stores (such as the Japan or the UK stores) and been unable to purchase the music. From what I gather I would need to use a credit card from that country in order to use the store.

probably has to do with markets, distribution, and a lot of blah-blah stuff that I don't get.

personally: if i have money and want to buy something from your store -- let me do it. but then, i never did understand Economics ;)

they are nuts

It reminds me of DVD regioning schemes. In the North America region, you get a DVD that has English, and more often than not, French and Spanish, at least subtitles and sometimes a dubbed track.

Well great, but what if you speak Japanese, Russian, Chinese, etc....then you have to break the region encoding and import your DVD from overseas and in a kind of grey area, and by grey area in the U.S. you stumble into the wrong grey area and someone is filing FELONY charges...and then you can get your language of choice.

Why, or freaking why, do they not want sales. Just because some corporate middle manager was unable to imagine sales from a certain segment, doesn't mean they wouldn't have happened, if only you allowed sales by default, instead of blocking sales by default, and only allowing sales under approved criteria.